This just in from stats departmentIt happened during the...

Off the beat

It happened during the Los Angeles Dodgers' opening baseball game of spring training Thursday.

The Dodgers trailed, 6-0, in the seventh inning when minor-leaguer Butch Davis hit a pinch-hit home run.

Said announcer Ross Porter: "That's Davis' first home run of the season."

Oat-eater becomes breadwinner

If you have your eye on a pacer named Entremetteur, keep your other eye on the TV listings.

Shortly after the news came out that the series "thirtysomething" was going on a six-week hiatus, Entremetteur, owned by "thirtysomething" co-star Timothy Busfield, went to the post at Los Alamitos, a Southern California harness track. Previously winless in 1991, Busfield's pacer scored a convincing victory.

Since then, he has won twice with ease.

Said Bob Gordon, Entremetteur's trainer: "We haven't done anything different. He must have read the story in the paper and realized he'd have to buy his own oats."

Rarity is in the cards

It looked as if the Pacific Trading Cards Co. of Lynwood, Wash., would take a tough hit when the Senior Professional Baseball Association suspended operations last fall.

But in the fail-safe collectibles universe, that's a good deal.

The company issued a news release saying: "This is the first series of cards ever printed for a suspended league. The 1991 Pacific Senior League may very well be the rarest cards of all time."

Net loss on the putting green

Between rounds of his victory in the GTE West Classic senior golf tournament at Ojai, Calif., last weekend, Chi Chi Rodriguez recalled that he was one of the best putters on the regular tour more than 20 years ago.

But he added that his putting stroke fell apart shortly after a magazine offered him $50 to write an article on putting.

Said Rodriguez: "I always just walked up to the putt and knocked it in the hole. But when I stopped to analyze it, I started to think about it. Sure enough, I got the jitters and it really hurt my career on the regular tour.

"That $50 cost me a lot of money."

Inmates feel all boxed in

Three inmates of the West Virginia Penitentiary trained for four months to fight this weekend in the Upper Ohio Valley Toughman boxing contest.

But they were unprepared for the political infighting that would keep them out of the ring. Warden Carl Legursky and Ron Gregory, state corrections commissioner, decided to bar the inmates from competing after state Sen. Larry Weidebusch protested.

"Prize money is offered to the winners and runners-up, and it is not appropriate, in my opinion, for an inmate to be competing for a cash award," Weidebusch said.

The quote

Ron Francis of the National Hockey League's Pittsburgh Penguins, on his new 11-pound 2-ounce daughter: "She's already taking meal money away from some of the kids at the hospital."